Archived news and commentary: July 19 - 25, 2004

2004/09/27 - 2004/10/03
2004/09/20 - 2004/09/26
2004/09/13 - 2004/09/19
2004/09/06 - 2004/09/12
2004/08/30 - 2004/09/05
2004/08/23 - 2004/08/29
2004/08/16 - 2004/08/22
2004/08/09 - 2004/08/15
2004/08/02 - 2004/08/08
2004/07/26 - 2004/08/01
2004/07/19 - 2004/07/25
2004/07/12 - 2004/07/18
2004/07/05 - 2004/07/11
2004/06/28 - 2004/07/04

Sunday, July 25, 2004

News and commentary:

"The Chirac Doctrine" (Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, from the 2004/08/02 issue)
The national interest: "When French presidents invoke "the national interest," often as not it means they've cut a deal they'd really rather not explain. But when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came courting President Jacques Chirac in Paris last week, hoping the ever-reluctant French would back Turkey's bid to join the European Union, the cash-and-carry policymaking was right out front.
As one senior Turkish official told NEWSWEEK, the intention was to "spread a package of economic benefits" before Chirac that "France could not reject." Sure enough, Turkish Airlines announced it would purchase 36 Airbus planes worth more than $1.5 billion. Erdogan also hinted he might be in the market for France's big-ticket nuclear technology. And just as surely, after years of implicit opposition and fence-straddling, Chirac suddenly decided that support for Turkey's candidacy suits "the national interests" of France."

"It's More Than a War" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2004/08/02 issue)
Report VII: "The report describes the struggle as "more than a war," but what the conclusions make plain is that it really means that it is different from war. ...
It is increasingly clear that the conflict in Afghanistan falsely fed the idea that the war against terrorism was a real war. In fact, Afghanistan was an exception. The reality of this threat, the very reason it is so difficult to tackle, is precisely that it cannot be addressed by conventional military means. ...
The issue of Iraq highlighted these choices. If you believed that this was truly a war, all that mattered was defeating the enemy. If you believed that a broader political struggle was key, then creating a new and modern Iraq was in many ways more important than defeating Saddam Hussein. The administration showed its colors with a brilliant war plan and no postwar planning." (See also: "War of Ideology" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2004/07/24))

"A new Berger scenario" (Pittsburgh Tribune Review, 2004/07/25)
"What was Sandy Berger up to when he "inadvertently" removed versions of a classified National Archives memo that critiqued Clinton administration intelligence and security efforts regarding the millennium celebrations? We still don't know.
But a bigger question is being posed by some of the well-sourced wags with whom we regularly converse. In fact, one says the thrust of the federal investigation now looking into Mr. Berger's actions should center not necessarily on what was taken from the archived files but what was placed in them.
Berger has acknowledged removing his handwritten notes taken during a review of classified documents. That's a violation of National Archives policy. And he says he mistakenly took the copies of the aforementioned memo, different drafts written by Bush-bashing anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke. Some of those copies remain missing.
But a new scenario has Berger, who only took notes on an initial visit last fall, placing material — again, related to the millennium terrorists threats — into the files on his second and third visits.
And adding an entirely new layer of intrigue to the story is word that telephone calls made by Berger during those latter two visits may have been monitored by an 'unauthorized agency.'"

"Extremists return, more vicious than ever" (Trudy Harris, Herald Sun, 2004/07/26)
"The Tawhid Islamic group went through a nasty phase of throwing acid at unveiled women in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil. That was back in 2000, when small, violent Islamic splinter groups such as Tawhid were wrestling for control of the Kurdistan region.
The region's political forces eventually cracked down on Tawhid and others, whose conscripts went into hiding or fled across Iraq's borders.
Last week they re-emerged, strength unknown, but this time on the international stage, emboldened and seemingly more vicious than before. On an extremist Islamic website last week, Tawhid warned Bulgaria and Poland that its fighters would turn both countries into "pools of blood" unless its troops withdrew from Iraq.Yesterday, it issued a similar threat against Australia, warning that "lines of booby-trapped cars" would explode unless the Howard Government backed out of Iraq." (See also: "Purported Threat to Italy and Australia Over Iraq" (Mariam Karouny, Reuters, 2004/07/24) and "Group Warns Bulgaria, Poland of Attacks Over Iraq" (Andrew Hammond, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/21))

"Muslims are a threat to our way of life" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/25)
"The Guardian newspaper is the Bible - perhaps one should say the Koran? - of Islamo-fascist Britain. However, it has recently been lending its opinion pages to one Fuad Nahdi, a leading Islamic "moderate" who publishes Q-News, a magazine for young UK Muslims. When two British Muslims launched a suicide attack in Israel, this is what he wrote in The Guardian of May 2, 2003: "I am not surprised by news of Britain's first suicide bombers. What, however, I find astonishing is that it took place in Tel Aviv, not Manchester." He goes on to say, "We should brace ourselves for the forthcoming intifada on the streets of Birmingham and Detroit."
Mr Nahdi, who arrived in Britain from Kenya in 1983, is comparing himself and his fellow Muslims here to the Palestinians conducting the second intifada against Israel. In Muslim folklore, the Palestinians are a native people disposessed by Zionist invaders. Mr Nahdi seems not to have grasped that, in Britain, he and the rest of the faithful are the "Jewish settlers", we, the usurped Palestinians. If anybody is going to mount an intifada against the invader, it will be us." (See also: "The Tories must confront Islam instead of kowtowing to it" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/18), "We must be allowed to criticise Islam" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/11) and "Dr Williams, beware of false prophets" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/04))

"The Conservative Party" (Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times/andrewsullivan.com, 2004/07/25)
"On the most fundamental matter, i.e. the war, I think Bush has been basically right: right to see the danger posed by Saddam and the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and Islamist terror; right to realize that the French would never have acquiesced to ridding the world of Saddam; right to endorse the notion of pre-emption in a world of new and grave dangers. But much of the hard work has now been done. No one seriously believes that Bush will start another war in the next four years. And in some ways, Kerry may be better suited to the difficult task of nation-building than Bush.
Domestically, moreover, Bush has done a huge amount to destroy the coherence of a conservative philosophy of American government; and he has been almost criminally reckless in his hubris in the conduct of the war. He and America will never live down the intelligence debacle of the missing Iraqi WMDs; and he and America will be hard put to regain the moral highground in world affairs after Abu Ghraib. The argument Kerry must make is that he can continue the substance of the war, but without Bush's polarizing recklessness. And at home, he must reassure Americans that he is the centrist candidate - controlled neither by the foaming Michael Moore left nor the vitreolic religious right. Put all that together, and I may not find myself the only conservative moving slowly and reluctantly toward the notion that Kerry may be the right man — and the conservative choice — for a difficult and perilous time."

"'Multitude': An Antidote to Empire" (Francis Fukuyama, The New York Times, 2004/07/25)
A review of Michael Hardt's and Antonio Negri's "Multitude":" "Hardt and Negri's new book, ''Multitude,'' argues that the antidote to empire is the realization of true democracy, ''the rule of everyone by everyone, a democracy without qualifiers.'' They say that the left needs to leave behind outdated concepts like the proletariat and the working class, which vastly oversimplify the gender/racial/ethnic/ class diversities of today's world. In their place they propose the term ''multitude,'' to capture the ''commonality and singularity'' of those who stand in opposition to the wealthy and powerful.
This book — which lurches from analyses of intellectual property rules for genetically engineered animals to discourses on Dostoyevsky and the myth of the golem — deals with an imaginary problem and a real problem. Unfortunately, it provides us with an imaginary solution to the real problem.
The imaginary problem stems from the authors' basic understanding of economics and politics, which remains at its core unreconstructedly Marxist. For them, there is no such thing as voluntary economic exchange, only coercive political hierarchy: any unequal division of rewards is prima facie evidence of exploitation. Private property is a form of theft. Globalization has no redeeming benefits whatsoever. (East Asia's rise from third- to first-world status in the last 50 years seems not to have registered on their mental map.) Similarly, democracy is not embodied in constitutions, political parties or elections, which are simply manipulated to benefit elites. The half of the country that votes Republican is evidently not part of the book's multitude." (See also: "The Snake" (Alan Wolfe, The New Republic/Powells, 2001/10/04) and "The new anti-Americanism" (Roger Kimball, The New Criterion, from the October 2001 issue))

"Beyond 9/11" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/07/25)
A review of "Imperial Hubris": "In his previous book, the indispensable "Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America," this same Anonymous laid out an extensive description of our greatest living enemy. Since then, his knowledge has continued to expand, while the force of his analysis only intensified. You will find no better explanation anywhere of how Islamic terrorists play strategic judo, leveraging our own wealth and power against us, than in "Imperial Hubris."
The author is equally effective in his explanations of how we defeat ourselves through policies that, while rhetorically satisfying, utterly fail to come to grips with the enemy. Whether discussing the absurdities of "bloodless" war or chastising our political leaders for their addiction to wishful thinking, this book will shake you. And it should.
I don't agree with all of Anonymous's conclusions. In the interests of full disclosure, I must mention that my own work is cited repeatedly in this book — and not always favorably. While my experience in the intelligence field convinced me that, behind his icy operational logic, bin Laden is driven by a mystical, annihilating vision, Anonymous bluntly rejects that view, seeing him as a strategic chess master with well-defined goals.
I remain unconvinced, but welcome the well-reasoned arguments made in this book." (See also: "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror" (Michiko Kakutani, NYT/IHT, 2004/07/19), "The Misunderstood Osama: How to read Imperial Hubris" (Bryan Curtis, Slate, 2004/07/14), "The secret history of Anonymous" (Jason Vest, The Boston Phoenix, 2004/07/02) and "CIA Analyst Assails War on Terrorism" (Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, 2004/06/26))

"An Iraqi Olympic Committee official..."
(Jim MacMillan, AP, 2004/07/24)
"An Iraqi Olympic Committee official models a steel mask at Al-Shaab Stadium in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, July 24, 2004. The device is said to have been used by Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, to torture Olympic athletes whose performance failed to meet his expectations."

"On eve of Olympics, Iraq reveals how Uday got results" (Philip Sherwell, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/25)
"It is a chilling reminder of the fate that once awaited Iraq's athletes if they disappointed Uday Hussein, Saddam's brutal sports-mad son.
As 31 Iraqis prepare for the Athens Games in less than three weeks, the devices used to torture some of their predecessors have been unveiled by Iraq's new Olympic officials.
Uday, the head of the Iraqi Olympic committee during his father's regime, forced under-performing sportsmen to wear a suffocating steel mask. He also set up a torture chamber in the committee headquarters.
Other devices displayed at Al-Shaab stadium in Baghdad include a head-to-toe steel case with internal spikes that would have gouged the victim when the two halves were shut." (See also: "The horrors of Saddam's 'sadist' son" (Tom Farrey, ESPN.com, 2002/12/22))

"No Shortage of Fighters in Iraq's Wild West" (Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, 2004/07/25)
A report from Ramadi: "The ferocity of the fighting in Ramadi and the tenacity of the mujahedin — as the insurgents are widely known, though one commander favors the snappier "Johnny Jihad" — have produced a very specific view of who the enemy is here: A mostly home-grown mix of anti-U.S. nationalists, loyalists of Saddam Hussein's former regime and a seemingly endless supply of part-time fighters — many former members of the Iraqi army — willing to pick up a rifle or grenade launcher to fire at U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.
Most insurgents here, the Marines say, are natives of the Ramadi area, where the insular tribal culture and tradition of cross-border smuggling have fostered an undercurrent of violence and suspicion of outsiders. Even Hussein's regime had difficulty exerting full control. ...
There are few illusions among U.S. troops here about being liked in a city where ubiquitous graffiti extol the exploits of the "brave" mujahedin and declares, "Down With the U.S.A."
"They pretty much hate us here," said one Marine commander as his Humvee maneuvered through the dangerous side streets of Ramadi's explosive south side, where fighting was intense in April. Slim youths approached with smiles on a recent morning — and then let loose with a barrage of stones."

Saturday, July 24, 2004

News and commentary:

"A masked Palestinian militant of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade..."
(AP, 2004/07/24)
"A masked Palestinian militant of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade holds his rifle as he stands on the balcony of the Khan Younis Governorate bullding in the southern Gaza Strip, Saturday July 24, 2004. Some 20 militants took over the building for several hours, demanding that their dismissals from security jobs be rescinded, a member of the group said. They left the building after receiving promises to resolve the problem of those who were fired."

"The Democrats and the Loony Left" (Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard, from the 2004/08/02 issue)
"But these days the fantasies of the Loony Left are increasingly embraced and nearly always tolerated by the Democratic party and its auxiliary groups. The result? The Loony Left now has a toehold on the Democratic party.":
"Michael Moore, whose anti-Bush movie Fahrenheit 9/11 has made him a favorite of Democrats, has explicitly argued Bush is moving the nation toward a Hitler-like dictatorship. "The Patriot Act is as un-American as Mein Kampf," he wrote in his book Dude, Where's My Country? Later on CNN, he said, "The Patriot Act is the first step. . . . If people don't speak up against this, you end up with something like they had in Germany." Moore was also a judge in a contest by MoveOn.org, a group closely allied with the Democratic party, to choose the best anti-Bush TV ad. Two entries, posted for a time on the MoveOn website, likened Bush to Hitler. However, MoveOn founder Wes Boyd said his organization doesn't share that sentiment.
Democrats in Washington turned out in droves for a special screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 in June. "There might be half of the Democratic Senate here," said Florida senator Bob Graham. His Florida colleague, Senator Bill Nelson, gave the film a thumbs-up as he left the theater. The film pushes numerous conspiracy theories about the president and his administration, and Democratic national chairman Terry McAuliffe latched onto one of them after viewing the movie. It involved Unocal's bid to build a natural gas pipeline in Afghanistan, which Moore suggests was the reason behind the American attack on that country. Asked by Byron York of National Review if he bought that theory, McAuliffe said he did. The Unocal deal, which the Clinton administration backed, collapsed in 1998, three years before the invasion of Afghanistan."

"War of Ideology" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2004/07/24)
Report VI: After spending 360 pages describing a widespread intelligence failure, the commissioners step back in their report and redefine the nature of our predicament.
We're not in the middle of a war on terror, they note. We're not facing an axis of evil. Instead, we are in the midst of an ideological conflict.
We are facing, the report notes, a loose confederation of people who believe in a perverted stream of Islam that stretches from Ibn Taimaya to Sayyid Qutb. Terrorism is just the means they use to win converts to their cause.
It seems like a small distinction - emphasizing ideology instead of terror - but it makes all the difference, because if you don't define your problem correctly, you can't contemplate a strategy for victory. ...
As an ideological movement rather than a national or military one, they can play by different rules. There is no territory they must protect. They never have to win a battle but can instead profit in the realm of public opinion from the glorious martyrdom entailed in their defeats. We think the struggle is fought on the ground, but they know the struggle is really fought on satellite TV, and they are far more sophisticated than we are in using it."

"Wheels of Fortune" (Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The New York Times, 2004/07/24)
Tour de Anti-Americanism: "After winning the Tour for the past five years, Armstrong has stamped his authority more devastatingly than ever on this year's race. Barring pestilence or war, he will set a record, and accomplish one of the greatest feats in sporting history, when he stands on the winner's podium in Paris tomorrow. He will also rub more salt in Gallic wounds. American dominance in any European event at any time might be resented, but this isn't any other time, and the Tour isn't any other contest. The race is part of the fabric of France, ingrained in the country's social, political and cultural history. ...
To make it worse, Armstrong's reign comes as French-American relations are at their sourest ever. Maybe Armstrong had that in mind when he went to the trouble last year of opposing the war waged by his friend and fellow Texan, George W. Bush, although his words - "It's wrong to go to the front without the support of Europe'' - did not dissipate the coolness with which his triumphs have been greeted. ...
But there is an uglier manifestation of anti-American feeling: the hounding of Armstrong in the French press over accusations that he is involved in doping, and the repulsive sight of fans not only holding up signs of syringes as he passes but also spitting at him. This is repulsive not because of the objective weight of the accusations, but because of the hypocrisy: the French have been notably uncensorious about their own flawed idols. The same fans who jeer Armstrong cheered the stage victory of Richard Virenque, the villain of the 1998 doping scandal, which nearly ruined the Tour." (See also: "The French say: If you can't beat 'em, hate 'em" (W, ¡No Pasarán!, 2004/07/23))

"Purported Threat to Italy and Australia Over Iraq" (Mariam Karouny, Reuters, 2004/07/24)
"A purported statement from militants linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda threatened Italy and Australia Saturday with attacks if they did not withdraw their troops from Iraq.
"Australian people, if your government refuses to withdraw ... we will shake the ground beneath your feet ... and columns of rigged cars will not stop," said the previously unheard of Islamic Tawhid Group, the al Qaeda organization, Europe.
"Italian people, we advise you accept our offer and if you refuse you will hear columns of rigged cars shaking your cities," the group said in a statement posted on a Web site." (See also: "Group Warns Bulgaria, Poland of Attacks Over Iraq" (Andrew Hammond, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/21))

"Palestinian journalists receive death threats" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/24)
"Palestinian journalists covering the ongoing crisis in the Palestinian Authority complained over the weekend that they had received death threats from the rival parties.
As a result, many of them said they have stopped covering the internecine fighting. Others said they were continuing to report on the power struggle, but without having their names mentioned for fear of reprisal.
"Many Palestinians working with the foreign media in the Gaza Strip are being threatened," a journalist in Gaza City told The Jerusalem Post. He said the threats were coming from all the parties involved in the internal strife.
"The Palestinian Authority is putting a lot of pressure on the journalists to refrain from covering the anti-corruption protests," he added. "The Fatah gunmen and the security forces are also making threats."
Last Thursday, many Palestinian journalists received phone calls warning them to stay away from a huge rally organized in Gaza City against PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's decision to appoint his cousin, Musa Arafat, as overall commander of the security forces.
The journalists said they believe that Musa Arafat's men were behind the threats. "We were told that any journalist who goes to the rally will meet the same fate as Nabil Amr," said another journalist who works on a regular basis with an international news organization.
Amr, a Palestinian legislator, was shot and seriously injured in Ramallah last week shortly after he called for reforms in the PA during a television interview." (See also: "Defiant Arafat reasserts grip on power" (Matthew Kalman, The Globe and Mail, 2004/07/21))

"North Korea Rejects U.S. Nuclear Proposal" (Sang-Hun Choe, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/24)
"North Korea on Saturday rejected a U.S. suggestion that it follow the example of Libya and abandon its nuclear weapons programs to open the way for economic aid and improved ties with Washington.
Calling the American proposal "nothing but a sham offer," the communist state reiterated that it would freeze its nuclear facilities as a first step toward their dismantling, but only if Washington provides energy aid, lifts economic sanctions and delists the North as a sponsor of terrorism.
"It is a daydream for the U.S. to contemplate forcing the (North) to lay down arms first under the situation where both are in a state of armistice and at war technically," said an unidentified spokesman of the North's Foreign Ministry."

"Kidnap sparks Cairo troop denial" (BBC News, 2004/07/24)
"Cairo has made clear it will not send troops to Iraq after a group kidnapped an Egyptian diplomat in Baghdad.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Egypt "was absolutely not considering sending Egyptian forces".
The move came after a video was shown with the diplomat, named as Mohamed Mamdouh Qutb, before six masked men.
A group calling itself the Lions of Allah Brigade said the kidnap was in reply to Egypt's offer of security aid to Iraq's interim government.
Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif had said Egypt was ready to offer its security experience to the interim Iraqi government."

Added in archive:
"McKinney Wins, but There's Good News Too" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/07/21)
"John Kerry, Reactionary" (Thomas Donnelly and Vance Serchuk, The Weekly Standard/AEI, 2004/07/12)

Friday, July 23, 2004

News and commentary:

"Democracy's Trojan horse" (John Fonte, National Interest/Hudson Institute, from the Summer 2004 issue)
"This essay suggests that ultimately the greatest challenge to liberal democracy in the 21st century will come from within. What I have described as "post-democracy", is, unfortunately, a serious alternative regime to the liberal democratic nation-state and the principle of democratic sovereignty. Thus, history may not end with the ideological triumph of liberal democracy.":
"Two major NGOs, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA, are exemplars of the conflict between democracy and post-democracy. These two organizations have waged what could be characterized as "lawfare" against the exercise of democratic sovereignty by the American nation-state. They continuously pillory America's liberal democracy as an "oppressive" regime that routinely violates human rights. ...
It is important to note that the NGO attack is not simply opposition to the policies of the Bush Administration. America was also pilloried during the Clinton era as a "persistent" violator of human rights and international law. In a 1999 report, Human Rights Watch complained that

the United States continued to exempt itself from its international human rights obligations, particularly where international human rights law grants protections or redress not available under U.S. law. In ratifying key human rights treaties it has typically carved away added protections for those in the United States by adding reservations, declarations, and understandings. Even years after ratifying key human rights treaties, the U.S. still fails to acknowledge human rights law as U.S. law [emphasis added].

In contrast, the NGOs believe that if international human rights laws and U.S. laws are in conflict, international laws supersede U.S. laws, even though these international laws have not been approved or enacted into American law by the relevant legislative bodies (Congress or a state legislature) through the normal processes of American constitutional democracy." (See also: "The Ideological War Within the West" (John Fonte, Foreign Policy Research Institute, May 2002) and "Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism - The Future of the Ideological Civil War Within the West" (John Fonte, Hudson Institute, 2001/10/26))

"A videotape of masked militants surrounding Momdoh Kotb..."
(Al-Jazeera/CNN.com, 2004/07/23)
"A videotape of masked militants surrounding Momdoh Kotb was aired Friday on the Arabic language network Al-Jazeera."

"Egyptian Diplomat Abducted in Iraq" (Ravi Nessman, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/23)
"Militants kidnapped a senior Egyptian diplomat as he left a mosque Friday and demanded his country abandon any plans to send security experts to support Iraq's new government, according to a video broadcast on the Al-Jazeera television station. ...
Mohammed Mamdouh Helmi Qutb, the Egyptian, was the first diplomat taken hostage, and his capture signaled that insurgents are targeting more influential foreigners. ...
Only days earlier, Qutb had embraced freed Egyptian truck driver Alsayeid Mohammed Alsayeid Algarabawi, who was released by a different militant group Monday.
An Egyptian diplomat in Baghdad, who declined to be identified, said Qutb was abducted Friday as he left a mosque. The black-clad militants, calling themselves "The Lions of Allah Brigade," claimed they abducted Qutb because Egypt said it was prepared to deploy security experts to help Iraq's interim government, according to Al-Jazeera. No specific threat against Qutb was mentioned.
Egypt has offered to train Iraqi police and security personnel in Egypt, but declined to deploy military forces in Iraq.
In the video — narrated by a news reader — Qutb is seated in front of six masked men, some holding rifles. He said he was being treated well, adding that the Egyptian mission in Baghdad was not cooperating with the U.S.-led multinational force and was only trying to help the reconstruction of Iraq, according to the newscaster." (Also: "The practice of beheading hostages has stirred opposition in Iraq, with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led a two-month uprising against U.S. forces beginning in April, joining the criticism Friday. "We condemn what some people are doing regarding the beheading of prisoners and it is illegal according to Islamic law," al-Sadr said at the Kufa mosque south of Baghdad, where he led Friday prayers. 'Anybody doing this is a criminal and we will punish him according to Islamic law.'")

"Waking Up From the American Dream" (Sasha Abramsky, The Chronicle, 2004/07/23)
An interesting essay on anti-Americanism: "Last year I visited London and stumbled upon an essay in a Sunday paper written by Margaret Drabble, one of Britain's pre-eminent ladies of letters. "My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable," she wrote. "It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world."
The essay continued in the same rather bilious vein for about a thousand words, and as I read it, two things struck me: The first was how appalled I was by Drabble's crassly oversimplistic analysis of what America was all about, of who its people were, and of what its culture valued; the second was a sense somewhat akin to fear as I thought through the implications of the venom attached to the words of this gentle scribe of the English bourgeoisie. After all, if someone whose country and class have so clearly benefited economically from the protections provided by American military and political ties reacts so passionately to the omnipresence of the United States, what must an angry, impoverished young man in a failing third world state feel?" (See also: "I loathe America, and what it has done to the rest of the world" (Margaret Drabble, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/05/08))

"A NoKo Travelogue" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/07/23)
Taranto points to a must read Kimland travelogue: "Yesterday we noted an Agence France-Presse story that quoted one Ian Mote, who'd visited the "Democratic" "People's" "Republic" of Korea, as saying, "It was nice to see no Starbucks there." A more honest, not to mention fascinating, take on North Korea, comes from Scott Fisher, an American living in Seoul, who paid a visit there and wrote a lengthy travelogue that appears on 1stopKorea.com.
It's well worth reading in full, but we'll just quote our favorite few anecdotes. The first one, which took place at the Tower of the Juche Idea in Pyongyang ("the Juche Idea" is the late dictator Kim Il Sung's bizarro ideology), is both sad and chilling (all ellipses in original):

I hung back and tried to strike up a conversation with the tower guide. At first she was reluctant, saying her English wasn't very good. I persisted and she finally relented, once the idea of a white person speaking Korean worked its way past her preconceptions.
We started by talking about her job and whether a lot of people were coming for the Arirang Festival. As we talked she was walking me around the corner of the building, out of earshot of the others.
Once we were away from the others the questions came pouring out. "What's life like in the South? Why do you live there? What's it like living there? What about your students (I'd told her I teach at a university) — what are they like? What do people in the South say about the North?" The woman was full of curiosity about life across the border, barely two hours south of where we were standing.
I tried my best to answer as we both kept looking over our shoulders to see if the others were coming. I felt really sorry for this lady. All she was doing was asking some basic questions about life in another country but she was worried about getting into trouble. I'm going to wonder for a long time if I should even be writing about her."

(See also: "Journey into Kimland" (Scott Fisher, 1stopKorea.com, 2002))

"World community demands action from Sudan on Darfur" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/23)
Darfur II: "The international community stepped up efforts this week to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan's western Darfur region, with Washington threatening sanctions against Khartoum if it does not bring Arab militias to heel.
The United States on Thursday presented a draft UN Security Council resolution authorizing sanctions on Sudan if it fails to prosecute leaders of the pro-government Janjaweed groups accused of widespread atrocities in Darfur.
"They have been supporting and sustaining some of these Janjaweed elements. This has to end," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in New York after talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. ...
The proposed UN resolution put forward by Washington threatens Sudan with unspecified sanctions within 30 days if it failed to prosecute militia leaders.
The text calls for an immediate arms embargo in Darfur and raises the possibility of sending peacekeepers to the region.
Experts from the 15 Security Council nations were to discuss the draft on Friday, diplomats said."

"Attacks in Sudan's Darfur region are genocide: US Congress" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/23)
Darfur I: "The US Congress unanimously passed a resolution declaring the atrocities being committed in Darfur, Sudan, a genocide, and calling on the White House to intervene multilaterally or even unilaterally to stop the violence.
By a vote of 422 to zero, the House of Representatives and "the Senate concurring" passed the resolution introduced a month ago by New Jersey Democrat Donald Payne stressing that in Darfur 30,000 people have been "brutally murdered", 130,000 have fled to neighboring Chad and more than one million have been internally displaced by the violence.
Quoting the United Nations Resident Humanitarian Coordinator who said that the violence in the poverty-stricken region "appears to be particularly directed at a specific group based on their ethnic identity and appears to be systemized," the resolution "declares that the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, are genocide."
It urges the US administration of President George W. Bush to "call the atrocities ... by its rightful name: 'genocide,' and calls on it to lead an international effort to prevent it.
The resolution, adopted late on Thursday, further calls on the Bush administration 'to seriously consider multilateral or even unilateral intervention to prevent genocide should the United Nations Security Council fail to act.'"

"Palestinian teen killed trying to stop Kassam launch" (Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/23)
"Palestinian health and security officials said that a group of Fatah Al Aksa Martyr's Brigades terrorists killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy Friday morning in the town of Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip after the youth tried to stop them from setting up a Kassam rocket launcher near his family's home, Army Radio reported.
Members of the Arafat-linked terrorist group were trying to plant Kassam rocket launchers next to the Zanin family residence in northern Beit Hanun, when the family, concerned over IDF retaliation, argued and ultimately struggled with the terrorists.
In the ensuing scuffle, the terrorists opened fire on the Zanin family, killing Jamil Zanin, 15, and injuring 5 others. The Kassam crew gathered their launchers and missiles and left the scene."

"Hedging on Iraq: Which side will Americans choose to be on?" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/07/23)
"Where does this leave us? With the unsettling acceptance, first, that people gauge their support more or less on the 48-hour battle cycle as reported in the global media, which as a rule is very hostile to the United States. Quiet in Iraq, relative calm in the Gulf, and the arrest of a few more fascist killers in Europe — all that just might sound a note of reassurance and thus create a spike of optimism.
In contrast, two to three Americans blown up every other day, more grotesque beheadings, and Saudi perfidy send the media into despair, if not hysteria, and prove that the war is indeed "lost." This is a world, after all, in which one Filipino captive on TV can adjudicate the policy of an entire country, while one day of bombing in Madrid can alter an election. We are now centuries away from Londoners getting through the Blitz or Americans enduring Iwo Jima and Okinawa. ...
And we haven't even come to the summer's political conventions, the elections in Afghanistan, the Olympics, and our own November voting. ...
So, we put up with the hype and distortions that will climax in November when each dead American is seen as the equivalent of an entire division, each insurrectionist explosion will be proof of a new Lebanon, and each errant American bomb a final confirmation of another Dresden. We know it; the terrorists count on it; and, yes, the media will deliver it.
Brace yourself: In the next three months we are all in for the ride of our lives."

"The 9/11 Vision" (Michael Ledeen, National Review, 2004/07/23)
Report V: "For those of us who have long argued that Iran, and Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah, provided much of the operational inspiration for Osama, it is gratifying to find forthright statements like "Bin Ladin reportedly showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that had killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983. The relationship between al Qaeda and Iran demonstrated that Sunni-Shia divisions did not necessarily pose an insurmountable barrier to cooperation in terrorist operations...al Qaeda contacts with Iran continued for many years."
The unsealed indictment of Osama bin Laden in the fall of 1998 charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Iran, Sudan, and Hezbollah, and that there was an "understanding" between al Qaeda and Iraq, promising that al Qaeda would not attack Iraq and that the two sides would cooperate on various things, including weapons development. ...
The weakest part of the report concerns what needs to be done to destroy the terror masters. The whole section is written as if the state sponsors were somehow beside the point; the commission focus is entirely on the terrorist groups. This is an odd position, given all the evidence of the deep involvement of countries like Iran, Syria, and Iraq."

"The Boldness of the President" (The New York Sun, 2004/07/23)
Report IV: "Well, look now to what the 9/11 report has to say about the man to whom President Clinton, under attack by an independent counsel,delegated so much in respect of national security, Samuel “Sandy” Berger. The report cites a 1998 meeting between Mr. Berger and the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, at which Mr. Tenet presented a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.
“In his meeting with Tenet, Berger focused most, however, on the question of what was to be done with Bin Ladin if he were actually captured. He worried that the hard evidence against Bin Ladin was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted,” the report says, citing a May 1, 1998, Central Intelligence Agency memo summarizing the weekly meeting between Messrs. Berger and Tenet. ...
On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council’s counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: “In the margin next to Clarke’s suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, ‘no.’” ...
In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times — Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action." (Hat tip: Drudge Report.)

"What To Do? A Global Strategy" (9-11 Commission/Wizbang, 2004/07/23)
Report III. An interesting quote from the report, found via Wizbang:
"In this sense, 9/11 has taught us that terrorism against American interests “over there” should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America “over here.” In this same sense, the American homeland is the planet. But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism — especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology. ...
Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the “head of the snake,” and it must be converted or destroyed.
It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is no common ground — not even respect for life — on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated." (Note: Wizbang also has a comprehensive collection of "9-11 Commission Report Download Links" (Wizbang, 2004/07/22))

"Details Emerge on Flight 93" (Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times, 2004/07/23)
Report II. New details on Flight 93 from the 9/11 commission:
"Of the 33 passengers on the plane who were not hijackers, at least 10, and two crew members, spoke to people on the ground. At least five of the calls included discussion of the World Trade Center. At 9:57, about seven minutes before the end, one of the passengers ended her conversation saying: "Everyone's running up to first class. I've got to go. Bye." ...
The voice recorder captured sounds of continued fighting, and Mr. Jarrah pitched the plane up and then down. A passenger is heard to say, "In the cockpit. If we don't we'll die!"
Then a passenger yelled "Roll it!" Some aviation experts have speculated that this was a reference to a food cart, being used as a battering ram.
Mr. Jarrah "stopped the violent maneuvers" at 10:01:00, according to the report, and said, "Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!"
"He then asked another hijacker in the cockpit, 'Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?' to which the other replied, 'Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.'"
Eighty seconds later, a hijacker is heard to say, "Pull it down! Pull it down!"
"The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them," according to the report, which seems to indicate that the hijackers themselves crashed the plane. "With the sounds of the passenger counterattack continuing, the aircraft plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 580 miles per hour, about 20 minutes' flying time from Washington, D.C," according to the report."

"New Plot Details Emerge" (Terry McDermott, Los Angeles Times, 2004/07/23)
Report I: "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man who conceived and directed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was motivated by his strong disagreement with American support for Israel, according to the final report of the Sept. 11 commission.
Mohammed conceived the initial outline of the attack six years before its execution and brought the plan to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden because he thought he did not have the resources to carry it out on his own. ...
The report contains the fullest accounting of Mohammed's overarching role from original conception to supervision of details. Bin Laden, too, was fully involved, selecting all or most of the participants, ordering the substance and the location of their training, and contributing to the timing of the attacks and the selection of targets, the report says. ...
After he was captured in Pakistan in early 2003, he told his interrogators that although he had developed no special complaint about America in his years here, he felt strongly that U.S. support of Israel was wrong and could be corrected by attacking the United States." (Also: "The report also appears to lay to rest the notion — long alluded to by administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney — that hijacker Mohamed Atta traveled to the Czech Republic to meet an Iraqi intelligence operative in the spring of 2001. In addition to repeating evidence that Atta was in the United States at the time, the report reveals that the Iraqi agent also was not in Prague when the meeting was alleged to have occurred.")

"Axis of Evil, Part Two" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/07/23)
"Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons being drawn from the Sept. 11 report is that Iran was the real threat. It had links to al Qaeda, allowed some of the Sept. 11 hijackers to transit and is today harboring al Qaeda leaders. The Iraq war critics have a new line of attack: We should have done Iran instead of Iraq. ...
The fact is that the war critics have nothing to offer on the single most urgent issue of our time — rogue states in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Iran instead of Iraq? The Iraq critics would have done nothing about either country. There would today be two major Islamic countries sitting on an ocean of oil, supporting terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction — instead of one. ...
Iran will go nuclear during the next presidential term. ... If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to the destruction of the "Great Satan" will have both nuclear weapons and the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us and that is either revolution or preemptive strike."

"Probe finds no systematic abuse" (Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times, 2004/07/23)
"An Army investigation has found no systematic abuse of prisoners in Iraq or Afghanistan and says nearly half of the accusations of mistreatment involved detainees "at the point of capture" on the battlefield. ...
The investigation, ordered in February, found that of the more than 50,000 enemy military and terrorists detained in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were 94 cases of confirmed abuse orpossible abuse — a fraction of 1 percent. ...
The Army inspector general portrayed the abuses as sporadic, not systematic. The abuses were committed by a few of the tens of thousands of soldiers deployed to both war theaters since the September 11 attacks on America, the report said.
"We were unable to identify system failures that resulted in incidents of abuse," the report said. 'The abuses that have occurred are not representative of policy, doctrine or soldier training. These abuses should be viewed as what they are — unauthorized actions taken by a few individuals, and in some cases, coupled with the failure of leaders to provide adequate supervision and leadership. These actions, while regrettable, are aberrations when compared to the actions of fellow soldiers who were serving with distinction.'"

Thursday, July 22, 2004

News and commentary:

"Surveillance video from Washington Dulles International Airport..."
(AP, 2004/07/22)
"Surveillance video from Washington Dulles International Airport the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 shows one hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, before boarding American Airlines Flight 77 with his brother, Salem, a fellow hijacker."

"The triumph of the East" (Anthony Browne, The Spectator, from the 2004/07/24 issue)
"I believe in a free market in religions, and it is inevitable that if you believe your religion is true, then you believe others are false. But this market is seriously rigged. In Saudi Arabia the government bans all churches, while in Europe governments pay to build Islamic cultural centres. While in many Islamic countries preaching Christianity is banned, in Western Christian countries the right to preach Islam is enshrined in law. Christians are free to convert to Islam, while Muslims who convert to Christianity can expect either death threats or a death sentence. The Pope keeps apologising for the Crusades (even though they were just attempts to get back former Christian lands) while his opposite numbers call for the overthrow of Christendom.
In Christian countries, those who warn about Islamification, such as the film star Brigitte Bardot, are prosecuted, while in Muslim countries those who call for the Islamification of the world are turned into TV celebrities. In the West, schools teach comparative religion, while in Muslim countries schools teach that Islam is the only true faith. David Blunkett in effect wants to ban criticism of Islam, a protection not enjoyed by Christianity in Muslim countries. Millions of Muslims move to Christian countries, but virtually no Christians move to Muslim ones.
In the last century some Christians justified the persecution and mass murder of Jews by claiming that Jews wanted to take over the world. But these fascist fantasies were based on deliberate lies, such as the notorious fake book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, many in the Muslim world are open about their desire for Islam to conquer the West."

See also:
"Some Arguments Against a Religious-Hatred Law" (David G. Green, CIVITAS, July 2004)
"We must be allowed to criticise Islam" (Will Cummins, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/07/11)
"Speech impediments" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2004/07/11)
"Crucifying public debate: If we aren't free to 'incite religious hatred', we aren't free" (Josie Appleton, spiked online, 2004/07/07))

"Urging Swift Action, Panel Warns Deadlier Attacks Are Likely" (David Stout, The New York Times, 2004/07/22)
"The terrorists of Sept. 11, 2001, succeeded because the government of the United States — shackled by a mentality and a national-security bureaucracy more appropriate for a bygone cold war era — failed at many levels, the commission investigating the attacks said today as it warned that other, even deadlier attacks are likely.
The commission chairman, Thomas H. Kean, said the worst failure of all was "a failure of imagination," in the sense that the signs had existed for years that an attack was coming. As the report itself put it, "The 9/11 attacks were a shock, but they should not have come as a surprise."
Mr. Kean said an attack "of even greater magnitude" than the one in which terrorists used hijacked airliners to destroy the World Trade Center, blast a hole in the Pentagon and kill about 3,000 people is 'possible — even probable.'" (See also: "Summary of Final Report" (The New York Times, 2004/07/22) and "Complete 9/11 Commission Report" (9-11 Commission, 2004/07/22))

"Video Shows Pentagon Hijackers Passing Through Airport Security" (John Solomon and Ted Bridis, The Washington Post, 2004/07/22)
"Surveillance video from Washington Dulles International Airport the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, shows four of the five hijackers being pulled aside to undergo additional scrutiny after setting off metal detectors but then permitted to board the fateful flight that crashed into the Pentagon.
The video shows an airport screener hand-checking the baggage of one hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, for traces of explosives before letting him continue onto American Airlines Flight 77 with his brother, Salem, a fellow hijacker.
The disclosure of the video comes one day before the release of the final report by the Sept. 11 commission, which is expected to include a detailed accounting of the events that day."

"Archives Staff Was Suspicious of Berger" (John F. Harris and Susan Schmidt, The Washington Post, 2004/07/22)
"Last Oct. 2, former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stayed huddled over papers at the National Archives until 8 p.m.
What he did not know as he labored through that long Thursday was that the same Archives employees who were solicitously retrieving documents for him were also watching their important visitor with a suspicious eye.
After Berger's previous visit, in September, Archives officials believed documents were missing. This time, they specially coded the papers to more easily tell whether some disappeared, said government officials and legal sources familiar with the case. ...
They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.
At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said."

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

News and commentary:

"Former French PM: Israel's creation a 'historic mistake'" (Ellis Shuman, israelinsider, 2004/07/21)
"Former French prime minister Michel Rocard said last week that the 1917 Balfour Declaration leading to the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state had been an "historic mistake."
Rocard, a member of the French Socialist Party who also serves in the European Parliament, told an audience at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, on June 16 that Israel was an "abnormal case in the world."
Referring to England's promise to create a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine, Rocard described the Israel state as a "unique and abnormal condition because it was created with a promise, and that millions of Jews gathered from all around the world, creating an entity that continues to pose a threat to its neighbors until today," the Palestinian International Press Center reported.
Rocard drew attention to the fact that Israel was historically created on a "racist basis," depending on armed conflict to set its borders." (Also: "In April 2002, an open letter from Rocard, published in the daily Le Figaro, accused Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of "producing worldwide anti-Israelism."
Rocard wrote: "You are producing worldwide anti-Israelism, and people like me, who have fought anti-Semitism since they were very young, are powerless to hold back the torrent of anger and hatred to which you have opened the floodgates.
"You are waging a war that you cannot win. Each action by [the Israeli Army] creates a dozen new terrorists ... Well, there are 2 million Palestinians ... How many will you have to kill? Several hundred thousand? Half a million?" Rocard wrote.")

"UPenn Drafting Shari'a Law for Maldives" (Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, 2004/07/21)
"An LGF reader attending law school at the University of Pennsylvania has forwarded an email describing a new seminar in which law students will not only study Islamic shari’a law — they will actually draft a new criminal code for the Islamic nation of the Maldives, based on shari’a, under the auspices of the United Nations.
I assume this will include the proper punishments for stealing, homosexuality, and apostasy, which are amputation, execution, and execution, respectively. ...

Seminar in Islamic Criminal Law:
Drafting a Criminal Code for the Maldives

The seminar will revolve around a single project: drafting a new criminal code for the Maldives. The work has been requested by the Maldivian government and is sponsored by the United Nations Development Program. Because the Maldives is by constitutional mandate an Islamic nation and, as a matter of law, all citizens are Muslim, the code will be the world’s first criminal code of modern format that is based upon the principles of Shari’a."

"Group Warns Bulgaria, Poland of Attacks Over Iraq" (Andrew Hammond, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/21)
"A group claiming to be the European wing of al Qaeda on Wednesday threatened Bulgaria and Poland with attacks if they did not pull troops out of Iraq.
The claim from the previously unheard-of group, posted on a Web site not normally used by militants, said both countries would face attacks similar to those in Madrid this year and the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities.
"To the crusader Bulgarian government which supports the Americans, we ask you for the last time to withdraw Bulgarian forces from Iraq or we will turn Bulgaria into a bloodbath," said the statement, signed "the al Qaeda organization, Europe."
"To Poland and the despicable Prime Minister Marek Belka, withdraw your forces from Iraq or you will hear explosions ripping through your country when we want," it added."

"The defining issue" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2004/07/21)
Resolution III: "The world terror supporters' club, aka the UN, has told Israel to tear down its security barrier. This follows the ruling by the terror court, the ICJ, that the barrier is illegal (see below). Neither of these decisions is binding, but they are intended to build up the global demonisation of Israel as a pariah state, the necessary prelude to its destruction. ...
These developments all signal a world that is descending ever deeper into a terrifying moral darkness. If the Jews have always been a society's pit canaries whose fate is an early warning of that society's wider collapse, Israel is surely the canary in the mine of the world. ...
Israel is the defining moral issue of our time. Not because its situtation is the worst in the world -- the genocide in Sudan is clearly in a different league. But because the way the world is treating it exemplifies a global moral sickness in which truth, goodness and the victims of an annihilatory madness are ignored, dehumanised or attacked, while lies, wickedness and their perpetrators are appeased, endorsed and supported." (See also: "Presbyterian church defames Christianity" (Dennis Prager, Town Hall, 2004/07/20))

"McKinney Wins, but There's Good News Too" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/07/21)
"The biggest headline from yesterday's Georgia primary is a depressing one: Cynthia McKinney, the anti-Semitic nutjob who lost her seat two years ago, staged a comeback, winning the Democratic primary for Georgia's Fourth Congressional District with 51% of the vote. Since the district is heavily Democratic, she's all but assured of returning to Congress.
In April 2002 McKinney famously accused President Bush of having foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks — a fringe position, but one toward which her party has increasingly gravitated since its November 2002 losses. With Democratic leaders embracing Michael Moore, figuratively if not literally, McKinney's position no longer seems so far out of the Democratic mainstream — though unlike Moore, McKinney is a champion of the Saudi regime."

For more on Cynthia McKinney, see also:
"Cynthia McKinney's Arab and Islamist Donors" (Daniel Pipes, danielpipes.org, 2004/07/09)
"Georgia's Hatemonger Returns" (Erick Stakelbeck, New York Post, 2004/07/09)
"Moonbats: The Gathering" (Michele Catalano, A Small Victory, 2003/09/06)
"Sept 11 theorists to meet in Berlin" (DPA/Expatica, 2003/09/05)
"Academic Credentials" (Joe Sabia, CornellDailySun/FrontPageMagazine, 2003/08/28)
"What actually happened to Pfc. Jessica Lynch?" (Brendan Nyhan and Bryan Keefer, Spinsanity, 2003/05/28)
"The Face of Muslim 'Moderation'" (Zoli Simon, Insight on the News, 2002/09/23)
"Democrat Implies Sept. 11 Administration Plot" (Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, 2002/04/12)
"Cynthia McKinney: Today's Hanoi Jane" (Debbie Schlussel, WorldNetDaily, 2001/10/19)

"More Evidence of an Iran-Al Qaeda Connection" (Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 2004/07/21)
"Just eight months before the September 11 terror attacks, top conspirator Ramzi bin al-Shibh received a four-week visa to Iran and then flew to Tehran — an apparent stop-off point on his way to meet with Al Qaeda chiefs in Afghanistan, according to law-enforcement documents obtained by NEWSWEEK.
German government documents showing the previously undisclosed trip by bin al-Shibh, a captured Al Qaeda operative who played a crucial coordinating role in the 9/11 plot, is the latest evidence that the World Trade Center conspirators frequently used Iran as a safe transit point in their travels to and from Afghanistan." (See also: "9/11: The Iran Factor" (Michael Isikoff and Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, from the 2004/07/26 issue))

"The Syrian Wayne Newton: The man inadvertently behind a scare in the skies" (Clinton W. Taylor, National Review, 2004/07/21)
Skies VI. Taylor solves "the mystery of the Syrian musicians in the sky": "There aren't that many casinos in southern California, so I had my research assistant, Mr. Google, take a look at some. An hour later I was talking to the nice folks at Sycuan Casino & Resort, near San Diego. Unlike most casinos where it's all Elvis impersonators, Paul Anka, and Linda Ronstadt — oh, wait, scratch that last one — Sycuan books the occasional "ethnic music" show, too. In August, for example, they'll have a Vietnamese night.
"Oh, do you mean Arab music?" inquired Angie, who answered Sycuan's phone. Yes, they had had an Arab act perform on July 1, an artist named Nour Mehana. Terry, Angie's supervisor at Sycuan, confirmed that he was there and that there was probably a backup band brought in, since there's no house band at Sycuan. In fractions of a second, Mr. Google found a website for Sycuan's event promoters, Anthem Artists, whose archive confirms Nour Mehana performed at Sycuan on 7/01/04. ...
I talked to James Cullen of Anthem Artists who confirms that Nour Mehana's large band did arrive on Northwest Flight 327."

"Six More Held in Iraq; U.S. Toll at 900" (Ravi Nessman, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/21)
"A militant group said Wednesday it had taken six more hostages — three Indians, two Kenyans and an Egyptian — and would behead them if their countries did not immediately announce the withdrawal of their citizens from Iraq. The U.S. death toll since the start of the war rose to 900 when a roadside bomb killed a soldier.
The seizure of the hostages came a day after a Filipino truck driver was released in exchange for Manila's withdrawal of its 51-member troop contingent — a move criticized by Washington and other allies as encouraging more abductions.
Those fears seemed to be realized with the new kidnappings.
In a statement given to The Associated Press, the group, calling itself "The Holders of the Black Banners," said it had abducted the six truckers and would behead one of them every 72 hours starting at 8 p.m. (noon EDT) Wednesday if their nations did not pull out of Iraq and the company they work for did not close its branch here."

"Saudis Find Head of American Hostage" (Abdullah Al-Shi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/21)
"The head of slain American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., who was kidnapped and decapitated by militants in Saudi Arabia last month, was found by security forces during a raid that targeted the hideout of the Saudi al-Qaida chief. Two militants were killed, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
The Interior Ministry said the head was discovered in a freezer in a house, although Johnson's body was not found and a further search was being conducted."

"Warner: New Report Backs Iraq WMD Claims" (Ravi Nessman, AP/ABC News, 2004/07/21)
"An upcoming report will contain "a good deal of new information" backing up the Bush administration's contention that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass destruction, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said. ...
"I'm not suggesting dramatic discoveries," Warner told reporters Tuesday, but "bits and pieces that Saddam Hussein was clearly defying" international restrictions, "and he and his government had a continuing interest in maintaining the potential to shift to production of various types of weapons of mass destruction in a short period of time."
The report is by the civilian head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, who reports to the CIA director. Initially the report was expected to be done this summer, but instead it will come out in September, Warner said."

"Sandy Berger’s Heavy Lifting" (Byron York, National Review, 2004/07/21)
"But it appears that some of the evidence in the case casts doubt on Berger's explanation. First, Berger has reportedly conceded that he knowingly hid his handwritten notes in his jacket and pants in order to sneak them out of the Archives. ...
Second, although Berger said he reviewed thousands of pages, he apparently homed in on a single document: the so-called "after-action report" on the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium plot of 1999/2000. Berger is said to have taken multiple copies of the same paper. He is also said to have taken those copies on at least two different days. There have been no reports that he took any other documents, which suggests that his choice of papers was quite specific, and not the result of simple carelessness.
Third, it appears that Berger's "inadvertent" actions clearly aroused the suspicion of the professional staff at the Archives. Staff members there are said to have seen Berger concealing the papers; they became so concerned that they set up what was in effect a small sting operation to catch him. And sure enough, Berger took some more."

"The Left’s Crimes of Silence" (Ralph Peters, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/07/21)
"The global Left never cared about the Iraqi people until they became American “victims.” As Saddam Hussein slaughtered more Muslims through campaigns of oppression and wars of aggression than any tyrant since Tamerlane, the Left remained silent. But now that Saddam himself might face the death penalty, Leftists everywhere are wringing their hands at the thought of such injustice. ...
The truth is that our Left is so intellectually decrepit, so infected by dishonesty, so morally feeble that it has only breath enough to condemn American actions. No matter how many brown or black human beings suffer around the world — starved, ethnically cleansed, raped, tortured, murdered — it doesn’t count unless you can blame America.
This is a moral crime for which we all pay. By obsessing about Iraq — where the United States and its allies performed a great and noble deed, however imperfect the day-to-day details — the Left has tacitly agreed to let the rest of the world rot. And it is, indeed, rotting.
Intervention to stymie tyrants couldn’t be right in Bosnia or Kosovo when Democrats owned the White House, but automatically wrong with Republican sponsors.
This isn’t just hypocrisy on the part of the Left. It’s complicity. With tyrants and thugs everywhere. The blood of al Qaeda’s victims is on the hands of terror’s apologists, whether in Cairo or in Cambridge."

"UN General Assembly adopts anti-fence resolution" (Melissa Radler, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/21)
Resolution II: "'Thank God that the fate of Israel and of the Jewish people is not decided in this hall,' Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman told the Assembly. ...
"It is simply outrageous to respond with such vigor to a measure that saves lives and responds with such casual indifference and apathy to the ongoing campaign of Palestinian terrorism that takes lives. This is not justice but a perversion of justice," he said." (See also: "Special: Dan Gillerman's UN speech" (The Jerusalem Post, 2004/07/18))

"UN demands Israel scrap barrier" (BBC News, 2004/07/21)
Resolution I: "The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution demanding that Israel comply with a world court ruling to dismantle its West Bank barrier.
The vote was passed with 150 in favour, 6 opposed and 10 abstentions.
The resolution, which is non-binding, was drafted after the International Court of Justice ruled the barrier illegally cut into Palestinian land.
Israel has already said it will ignore the court's ruling and condemned the resolution as "outrageous".
All 25 members of the European Union voted in favour of the resolution after it was amended to include calls for Israelis and Palestinians to meet their obligations under the "roadmap" peace plan. ...
US Deputy Ambassador James Cunningham said that the resolution was unbalanced.
"The United States remains convinced that the focus must remain on President Bush's vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side," he said.
Israel, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau also opposed the resolution."

"Defiant Arafat reasserts grip on power" (Matthew Kalman, The Globe and Mail, 2004/07/21)
"But the most troubling aspect of Mr. Arafat's reassertion of control was a warning to Palestinian journalists to cease all coverage of the kind of street protests that rocked the Gaza Strip and some West Bank cities last weekend. Reporters have also been threatened with severe punishment if they depict clashes between rival groups in the Gaza Strip, such as the gunfight in Rafah that injured 12 people on Sunday.
The ban effectively prevents international news outlets from covering these events, since they depend on Palestinian photographers, reporters and editors to produce news footage and written copy for broadcasters, print media and wire services.
The last time such threats were issued was in September of 2001, when Palestinian reporters were forced to suppress images of huge street celebrations in Nablus and Bethlehem after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. International news bureau chiefs for wire services including Reuters and Associated Press were warned that their cameramen would be in danger if their footage was broadcast in the West."

"Arafat says bullets raising cancer rate" (Paul Martin and Maria Cedrell, The Washington Times, 2004/07/21)
"Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accused Israel of polluting the West Bank and Gaza Strip with depleted-uranium bullets, causing a sharp increase in cancer rates.
"They have caused cancer that is like Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Mr. Arafat said in an interview.
"America could not find uranium in Iraq, but we have found it here in Palestine — and the Israelis are using it to kill our people."
Mr. Arafat, his eyes bulging with anger and his lips trembling, the effect of rumored Parkinson's disease, encouraged reporters to visit Palestinian hospitals and see the cancer patients.
Cancer specialists at two hospitals, one in Ramallah and the other in Bethlehem, said they had seen no increase in cancer rates during the current uprising, which began in September 2000.
The Palestinian leader was referring to dense bullets of depleted uranium that are sometimes used by U.S. forces to pierce tank armor. The Palestinians have no tanks."

"Berger Quits as An Adviser To Kerry" (Susan Schmidt, The Washington Post, 2004/07/21)
"Clinton administration national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, under criminal investigation for removing copies of highly classified documents from the National Archives, severed his ties to John F. Kerry's campaign yesterday.
Berger, who has been the subject of an investigation since October, stepped down as Kerry's informal adviser on foreign policy and national security as the campaign moved quickly to stem the unfolding story's political damage.
A government official with knowledge of the probe said Berger removed from archives files all five or six drafts of a critique of the government's response to the millennium terrorism threat, which he said was classified "codeword," the government's highest level of document security."

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

News and commentary:

"Presbyterian church defames Christianity" (Dennis Prager, Town Hall, 2004/07/20)
Prager on the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which has "equated the Jewish state with South Africa during apartheid and called for a universal divestment from it":
"It takes a particularly virulent strain of moral idiocy and meanness to single out Israel, not Arafat's Palestinian Authority, or terror-supporting, death-fatwa-issuing Iran, or women-subjugating Saudi Arabia, for condemnation and economic ruin. One of the most decent societies, one of the most liberal democracies in the world, is fighting for its life against Islamic fascists who praise the Holocaust and publicly call for the annihilation of Israel — and the Presbyterian Church calls for strangling Israel! ...
This is one of the morality-clarifying issues of our time. To single out Israel for economic strangulation while that good nation fights for its life is an act of such immorality that holding that view precludes one from the title "good" or "God-fearing," for if they are true to God, I am false to Him. If they are good, I who support Israel am bad. If their Bible teaches them to strangle Israel and support Yasser Arafat, I am guided by a different Bible."

"Philippines' Iraq hostage freed" (BBC News, 2004/07/20)
Pullout V: "Philippine truck driver Angelo de la Cruz has been freed from captivity in Iraq after Manila complied with a demand to withdraw troops from Iraq.
Militants took Mr de la Cruz captive on 7 July, and threatened to behead him unless their demand was met.
President Gloria Arroyo has risked her strong ties with Washington by withdrawing the tiny Philippine contingent a month early.
Her decision has drawn sharp criticism from the US and its allies.
Mr de la Cruz was handed to the Philippine embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, after being dropped off outside the United Arab Emirates mission in the Iraqi capital."

"Up early to talk about Arnold with Katie on Today..." (Hugh Hewitt, hughhewitt.com, 2004/07/20)
Hewitt on the Berger affair: "Second, keep applying the Condi Rice test. If Dr. Rice had been caught stuffing her blouse with highly classified handwritten notes from the days after 9/11, what would be going on in D.C. right now? Do you think The Today Show could have found someone to criticize Rice on air?
Gergen pointed to the placement of the Berger story inside the Washington Post as evidence that it isn't that significant. Huh? It is on page 2, hardly a burial ground for minor flare-ups. The story hit too late for most of the papers to get more than the AP report into print, but it should be boiling by tomorrow, and the blogosphere is already on full storm watch, and no doubt details will develop throughout the day.
First question: Does John Kerry condone this? Berger is a senior advisor to Kerry, so watch if the Dems want this scandal to follow their already struggling nominee to Boston.
The biggest question of all: If you can't trust Democrats with classified documents, how can you trust them with the national security?" (See also: "Clinton Adviser Probed in Terror Memos" (John Solomon, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/19))

"Rights Group Says Sudan's Government Aided Militias" (Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2004/07/20)
Darfur II: "Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, on Monday published excerpts of documents that it says implicate the Sudanese government in recruiting, equipping and guaranteeing impunity for the Arab militias accused of killing tens of thousands of Africans and driving more than 1 million from their homes in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The rights organization said the confidential government documents called on local Sudanese officials in February and March to recruit fighters for the militia known as the Janjaweed, to give them "provisions and ammunition," and to tolerate "minor" abuses of civilians. One document written by a local official in North Darfur asked security officials to permit the followers of a well-known Janjaweed leader, Sheik Musa Hilal, "to proceed" with their activities and to "secure their vital needs."
Human Rights Watch said another document outlined plans by the Sudanese government to resettle Arab nomads in land occupied by local rebels and villagers.
"These documents show that the government in Khartoum has been supportive of the militias as a matter of policy," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch." (See also: "Darfur Documents Confirm Government Policy of Militia Support" (Human Rights Watch, 2004/07/20))

"Arab women singers complicit in rape, says Amnesty report" (Jeevan Vasagar and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2004/07/20)
Darfur I: "While African women in Darfur were being raped by the Janjaweed militiamen, Arab women stood nearby and sang for joy, according to an Amnesty International report published yesterday. The songs of the Hakama, or the "Janjaweed women" as the refugees call them, encouraged the atrocities committed by the militiamen.
The women singers stirred up racial hatred against black civilians during attacks on villages in Darfur and celebrated the humiliation of their enemies, the human rights group said.
"[They] appear to be the communicators during the attacks. They are reportedly not actively involved in attacks on people, but participate in acts of looting."
Amnesty International collected several testimonies mentioning the presence of Hakama while women were raped by the Janjaweed. The report said:"Hakama appear to have directly harassed the women [who were] assaulted, and verbally attacked them."
During an attack on the village of Disa in June last year, Arab women accompanied the attackers and sang songs praising the government and scorning the black villagers.
According to an African chief quoted in the report, the singers said: 'The blood of the blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them from our area and our cattle will be in their land. The power of [Sudanese president Omer Hassan] al-Bashir belongs to the Arabs and we will kill you until the end, you blacks, we have killed your God.'" (See also: "Rape A Terror Weapon in Sudan's Embattled Darfur Region" (The Scotsman, 2004/07/19))

"What Really Happened on Flight 327?" (Joe Sharkey, The New York Times, 2004/07/20)
Skies VI: "I have since spoken at length with Ms. Jacobsen, and also with an official of the Federal Air Marshal Service, who confirmed the gist of Ms. Jacobsen's narrative, if not her interpretation. ...
Yesterday, a Federal Air Marshal Service spokesman, Dave Adams, a law enforcement officer for 30 years, said that the suspicious characters on Flight 327 were musicians. The man in the yellow shirt was a drummer, he said.
"We interviewed all 14 of these individuals,'' Mr. Adams said. "They were members of a Syrian band" traveling to a gig at a casino near Los Angeles, he said, adding that their names were run through "every possible" data bank and terrorist watch list. "They were scrubbed. Nothing came back." ...
As for the Syrian band, "They gave their little performance in the casino and two days later they flew out on a JetBlue flight from Long Beach to New York," Mr. Adams said." (See also: "Part II: Terror in the Skies, Again?" (Annie Jacobsen, Womens Wall Street, 2004/07/19))

"FBI Probes Berger for Document Removal" (Susan Schmidt and Dan Eggen, The Washington Post, 2004/07/20)
"The FBI is investigating Clinton administration national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger's removal of classified documents from the National Archives, attorneys for Berger confirmed last night.
Berger inadvertently took copies of several versions of an after-action memo on the millennium bombing plot from the Archives last fall, said his attorney Lanny Breuer. The lawyer said one or more of the copies were then inadvertently discarded.
The inspector general of the Archives began an investigation last October and turned it over to the FBI in January. FBI agents searched Berger's office and home safe, and the probe is continuing, Breuer said.
Berger spent three days at the Archives, on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, last summer and fall examining documents to provide the Clinton administration's responses to inquiries from the presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The commission's final report is slated for release Thursday."

Monday, July 19, 2004

News and commentary:

"Clinton Adviser Probed in Terror Memos" (John Solomon, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/07/19)
"President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.
Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants. Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing.
Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.
"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement to the AP."

"Had Enough?: The U.N. handicaps Israel, along with the rest of us" (Anne Bayefsky, National Review, 2004/07/19)
"The Arab drive to destroy the state of Israel has debased the U.N.